Page 77 of My Last Dance

“Keep up?” His eyebrows pulled together as he jumped down from the boards. “I can do anything you can do.” He paused for a beat and studied my face. A curious little smirk played on his face as he rocked back on his heels. “In fact”—he cocked his head to the side—“I bet it’ll be easy, sweetheart.”

I angled my jaw to the side. “Oh, you little—”

“Nothing about me is little.” He grinned proudly, flustering me even more.

“Ice Dance isnoteasy,” I fumed.

Amusement danced in his eyes as he grinned down at me. He hit a nerve, and he knew it. He dipped closer to me and whispered, “You scared I’ll show you up?”

My mouth dropped open. I had no words.

He laughed. “What? Carl got your tongue?” He wagged his eyebrows at me.

Frustration swelled up inside of me, making me want to smack the smirk right off his face “No. I refuse to entertain this. Besides, I can’t just let you quit hockey. That’s…that’s insane!” I burst out.

“Letme?” He arched a skeptical eyebrow. “Didn’t you recently yell at me for using that phrase?”

I shook my head at him, then starting power walking to the board’s door.

Behind me, I heard him blow out a breath before jogging to catch up to me. “Wait, Piper. Please. Just give me one more minute.”

Rolling my eyes, I stopped walking and turned to face him.

A little crease formed between his eyebrows. “I don’t know how this went off the rails so quickly,” he said, rubbing his jaw.

“You don’t?” I deadpanned.

His shoulders fell with a breath. He turned his attention to the broken, dusty scoreboard still hanging up at the back of the empty rink. “Look, I reached my dream. And that was all thanks to you.”

I held my temples. “So, this is, what? You paying off some sort of debt to me?” I shook my head. “You don’t owe me for giving you some shitty ice times, like, a decade ago.”

He bit the inside of his cheek. “It wasn’t just that, Piper, and you know it. Besides,” he sighed, “this has nothing to do with any of that. Not really, anyway.”

“Thenwhy?Why would you do this?”

His eyes danced with mischief. “Sounds fun.”

My shoulders dropped. There it was. He was playing me. “I’m sorry, did I hear you right? Because itsounds fun?”

He grinned as he looked around the empty rink, taking it in one last time. “Don’t worry about my reasons. You want a partner or not?”

I walked right up to him, right into his personal space, and took his chin in my hand. “Did you get hit too hard?” I maneuvered his head around to study his pupils. “Take a puck to the head?”

“No.” He laughed and gently grabbed my wrist. “I want to do this.” His thumb swiped back and forth over my wrist, and I had to suppress a shiver. That was another reason we couldn’t skate together—my body wouldreactto him. “I have my reasons, and they are…self-serving,” he mused.

His words broke whatever trance he put me in and I pulled back. “You can’t just say that. What does that even mean?”

“We’ll be famous, Piper.” He wagged his eyebrows.

“You’re already famous, dufus.”

“I’ll bemorefamous,” he said with a laugh. “We’ll go down in rink history. Plus, I’ve never been to the Olympics before, it’s on my bucket list. What do you say?”

My feet felt rooted to the cement floor. “You could be on the USA Hockey Team in a second if you wanted.”

He chuckled. “But I’d have a helmet on the whole time. I want the world to see my pretty face.”

I blinked at him. “You’re insane.”

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